October 03, 2008

"Premium" Blogger Templates now available from Theme Forest

Theme Forest is the first template marketplace I've encountered which offers premium Blogger templates for download, alongside web templates and themes for other CMS's.

At the time of writing, there are 7 premium Blogger XML templates available for download, though I suspect many more will become available in the coming weeks as more designers create themes for our favorite blogging platform.

These themes are very reasonably priced (between $10 and $12 at the moment) and as they are offered as premium downloads, they have been designed exclusively by the theme author.

My offerings on Theme Forest

For some time, I have considered designing premium Blogger templates, but had been anxious about the amount of time and work involved in creating a site through which to sell these. So when I discovered Theme Forest, I decided this would be a much better entrance for me into the realm of premium template sales.

At present, you can find two of my own Blogger template designs available in the marketplace: Lotus and Underland:

Both of these themes are three column designs and, as you should expect of a premium theme, these offer many non-standard features. The download files include all template images used in the theme and a comprehensive PDF which includes instructions for upload and set-up.

I also have two more premium themes in progress which should be complete and ready for sale in the next couple of weeks.

Will I still be creating FREE Blogger templates?

Of course! Blogger Buster is my pride and joy: I love writing about Blogger and creating templates for others to use, and I assure you that I'll continue to create free templates too.

As I'm sure many of you will understand, I do still need to put food on the table. Anything I earn from designing for Theme Forest will be extra income which enables me to spend more time researching and blogging than working on freelance projects.

Downloading themes from Theme Forest

To purchase a theme or other offering from these marketplaces, you need to register your free account and make a deposit (min $20) which can be spent on any of the marketplaces, and on any theme.You can make a purchase by choosing the "purchase" link on any theme page, and as far as I can tell, these downloads are available for you to access at any time, ensuring you can download any updates or changes to your themes which have been made by the theme author.

Become a Theme Forest author!

Those of you who design Blogger templates may be interested in how easy it is to become a theme author, so I'll fill you in on the details.

To become an author, you first need to register your account, then read through a comprehensive tutorial which explains the process and responsibilities of becoming an author.

Before you can upload files, you need to complete a questionnaire to ensure you understand the terms and conditions, and how to organize/upload your themes and files. After this, you will be able to upload your templates and themes for review by a member of staff.

How themes are priced

Once you have uploaded themes for review, your work will be assessed for quality and assigned a price (we cannot choose the prices for our own work at present).

Wordpress themes seem to attract the highest prices, while Blogger and general Site templates are priced bwtween $10 and $15.

Earnings and referrals

When you first become an author, you will earn 25% of all sales. Once you have sold more than $500 worth of themes, you will be offered the opportinity to become an "exclusive author": this means that you can choose to sell your themes exclusively through the Theme Forest marketplace, and your commission will increase to 35% (and possibly up to 50% in the future).

To many, this may see, a very low commission for theme authors (I must admit I'm a little disappointed to earn only $2.50 each time one of my own themes is downloaded). However, I should point out that Theme Forest take on the responsibility of advertising, hosting, distribution of files and so on. This means that authors have no other work than designing and uploading their themes, as all other requirements are taken care of by Theme Forest staff.

Referrals generate 50% in commission. This means that if you refer a new user who deposits $20 across the Envato marketplace network, you will earn $10. This offers much more incentive for authors to generate referrals for their themes and for users to promote the availability of themes from their own sites.

What do you think?

I would love to know your opinions about Theme Forest as a purchaser or author, and any feedback you may have about the premium Blogger themes I have created, so please feel free to leave your comments and opinions below.

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